My Heart's Desire

-Marge Montgomery 

To my many friends at FBC,

I am so proud of all of you!! When I went to church on Sunday, I was thrilled to hear all the good responses of the ones who have never fasted before but were willing to try it.  I am sure the Lord is excited about you willingness to try fasting.  I heard from one who was fasting TV time, one was fasting sweets and some were on the Daniel fast.  All of you were excited about your first attempt to please the Lord by fasting.  I can hardly wait to hear how much the Lord has done for all of you. 

I had fasted one day last week to practice but this week it was the real thing.  The first day was certainly the easiest, no problem, I can do this.  The second day was much the same until about 4 o’clock in the afternoon.  I got quite sick and decided I needed a little more food in my stomach to take care of the medicine I had taken in the morning.  I had some chicken noodle soup and two crackers.  Guess what?  The Lord was not angry with me.  He just said it is ok just keep trying, I love you!  The next day we started on the Daniel fast with the fruits and vegetables.  Oh, they tasted good.  It has been fun trying new recipes from friends such as spaghetti squash with spaghetti sauce, vegetable soup with no meat and v8 juice in between.  As you know from my last blog, I am a snacker.  God knows that too and He understands.

We are learning things about fasting that we never knew before.  One thing was when you do not eat meat you body gets cold.  Lack of protein was the problem.  The solution was some peanut butter.  We also know that almost everything has sugar in it, so you have to read labels.  The greatest thing we have learned is that we can do it!!  We have decided that fasting is going to be a regular part of our life from now on.  Why do we wait so long to be obedient?  Actually, with God we can do anything.

Remember in Daniel 10, that Daniel saw a vision of the Lord, heard His voice, fell into a deep sleep, and an angel touched him and he fell on his hands and knees.  There was no strength in him. The angel said “stand up for I have been sent to you”.  There is much more to the story but the angel said to him “do not be afraid for from the first day that you set your heart on understanding this and on humbling yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to your words.”

I thank Him so much for the weeks of soul searching I went through before the fast.

Oh, to be a Daniel.  My heart’s desire is to please God and to follow in the path He originally set out for me!

God bless!

Preparing for Change

-Marge Montgomery

As I look to our time of fasting on March 1st to March 8^th I am preparing for a change in my life.  I want more of God and less of this world.

Since I had never fasted before I decided to try one day and see how it would be.  I have to take some medicine so I thought the best thing to do was take the medicine with some oatmeal for breakfast.  I would then skip lunch and dinner.  I forgot to prepare for a couple of days before the fast by not eating so much sugar and not eating between meals.  The morning went by with no problems but then it was time to prepare for the noon meal.  "Oh, I forgot I was fasting, no food."  I went to prayer and enjoyed the company of the Lord.  All afternoon I would think, “What I should have for dinner? No need, I am fasting.”  Going without food was not my biggest problem, instead, it was what to do with all the time I always spent on preparation, cooking, eating and cleaning up.  More time for prayer.  Dave and I prayed together.  We had no trouble knowing what to pray.  God seems to go before us and show us what to pray for.

One thing God has taught me is that I go through the kitchen too often.  Every time I go through I grab something to eat, maybe a cookie, a piece of candy, an apple or anything else in sight. 

I intend to fast again and listen for the Lord’s leading.  I feel He has something great in store for Dave and me as we live out our lives for Him.  I can’t wait for the outcome.

The verse that was on my lips for the day of fasting is “My God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory according to Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19).    

Clean Vessels

-Marge Montgomery


 I’M EXCITED
I have attended church all of my life.  I was saved at age 10 (a long time ago) but I have never fasted even once.  So I’m excited to fast so I can learn more about the Lord and how I can serve Him better.

The Lord goes ahead of us and gets us ready to do His will.  I have been reading several books lately and they all seem to point to sins that we don’t think we are doing or some that we know for certain we are doing.  Now I realize what the Lord was doing.  He was preparing me for the fast by showing me my sins and putting them under the blood.  We cannot expect much from our fast if we are bogged down with unconfessed sin.  We need to be clean vessels.  Jesus said, "If you love me you will keep my commandments"
(John 14:15).   

As you pray to the Lord remind Him of the verse in I John 1:9.  His word says, “If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteous”.

I am going to give this fast everything I have.  I so want to please the Lord and have Him draw near to me.  That takes obedience on my part.

We need to pray scripture concerning our needs and to trust scripture that if God said it, and it is true.  For instance, I John 1:9 tells how to be cleansed but we have to believe it and accept forgiveness and get on with our life and live the life God has planned for us.  God cannot use us if we are dragging our guilt around with us for the rest of our lives.  We need to break free from Satan’s influence